To
demonstrate God’s love and hope in Christ to the world’s orphaned and abandoned
children, improving their quality of life.

Leadership

CEO/Executive DirectorMrs. Madelene Metcalf

Board ChairMs. Amy Rushing

Board Chair Company AffiliationVerizon

History & Background

Year of Incorporation2006

Organization's type of tax exempt status501-C3

Financial Summary

Graph: Expense Breakdown Graph - All Years

Projected Expenses$719,759.00

Projected Annual Revenue$720,263.00 (2017)

Statements

Mission

To
demonstrate God’s love and hope in Christ to the world’s orphaned and abandoned
children, improving their quality of life.

Background

Beginning in 2003 and working in
conjunction with the Children’s Emergency Relief International, Sweet Sleep
diligently grew its ministry by bringing “bed building teams” into Moldova and
began to consider expanding to other third world countries.

After considering the goals and ministry of the organization, Sweet Sleep’s Advisory Board voted in October 2006 for the organization to establish itself as a separate entity. In the fall of 2006, the growing ministry became Sweet Sleep, Inc. and received official 501(c)(3) status from the (IRS) in February 2007.

Since its inception, Sweet Sleep has provided over 22,400 beds, Bibles and mosquito nets across seven countries (Moldova, Uganda, Haiti, South Africa, Rwanda, and the United States. Over $3.4 million dollars have been invested in emerging communities globally, 187 jobs have been created and supported, 216,000 people have been educated and served, and over 50,000 volunteer hours have been given.

Over the past two years Sweet Sleep has worked to respond to global changes in orphan care; the result of which has been a growing understanding for and emphasis on family stabilization and adopting or keeping children in families within their own communities. So far, two family preservation models have been established that can be implemented depending on the socio-economic structure of the emerging communities. These models can be adapted and implemented as needed to meet needs in additional countries. Finally, Sweet Sleep is developing partnerships with indigenous NGOs, local nonprofit organizations, and subsidiary groups who are working together to holistically meet the needs in these emerging communities.

Impact

Sweet Sleep's top accomplishments from the past year include:

Initiated 1000 families in Ethiopia into a community development and family preservation program, providing social counseling, vocational training and income generating activities. This resulted in self-sustainability and ensured family support for approximately 5000 vulnerable children.

Established cooperative economic development programs, including village savings and loan associations, in Uganda providing self-sustainability to approximately 140 families.

Provided 1,408 beds, bibles, and where applicable mosquito nets among central and northern Uganda, Eastern Europe, and the United States.

Responded to a malaria epidemic in east Africa by providing an additional 747 mosquito nets in Uganda and Kenya.

Conducted a summer camp in Moldova for 90 orphaned and adoptable children and 20 Christian couples who were trained in in-country foster care and adoption. Also conducted three one-day seminars across Moldova to train 450 Baptist pastors in orphan care through the Church. As a result of our adoption training and advocacy, over 40 Moldovan children have been adopted or permanently placed in Christian Moldovan families.

Sweet Sleep's top three to five goals for the current year include: -

To provide 2500 beds to orphaned or abandoned children.

To established 15 cooperative economic development programs in Uganda, serving up to 30 families each.

To expand beds delivery programs into recovering communities in Rwanda, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria.

To send 70 short-term missionaries into emerging communities on six mission journeys.

Needs

1.
Funding for 15 economic development programs in Uganda that will provide self-sustainability
to up to 450 families ($20,000)

2. Funding for adoptive and foster family training and equipping initiatives in Moldova ($10,000)

3. Funding for beds delivery programs through partnerships with local HIV treatment and child reunification organizations in Uganda ($125,000)

4. Funding for beds delivery programs through partnerships with churches of the Baptist Union of Moldova to orphaned and abandoned children living in institutions ($24,000)

4. Funding for strategic staffing and staff development. Current needs are a salary for the current president and the salary for a development director ($150,000)

Other ways to donate, support, or volunteer

Sweet Sleep accepts donations via mail in the form of checks or online at www.sweetsleep.org/donate. We are always glad to take donations via phone. Sweet Sleep is also able to accept donation of stock through our TD Ameritrade account. Please contact us at info@sweetsleep.org.

We are excited to announce that we are now a part of the Kindful community. Donors are able to create an account and monitor their giving, print tax statements on demand and update their information as it changes.

Sweet Sleep is a great place to volunteer. We often need office help, ranging from mailings to projects to social media to annual events. We also have additional volunteer opportunities in advocacy, retail & merchandising, as well as public awareness/ speaking events. Please contact ronda@sweetsleep.org to find out more about upcoming volunteer & intern opportunities.

Sweet Sleep serves orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children, typically in third world countries, but also domestically. Current projects include work with orphanages and communities in Uganda and Moldova, with expected growth into Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria. We also work throughout Tennessee, serving children living in foster care families.

Board Chair Statement

You've likely never thought of
your own bed as anything more than a place to sleep. However, the children
Sweet Sleep has ministered to by providing them with clean, comfortable beds
tell us that it is so much more:

"My name is Mariana and I want to tell you that this bed means a lot for me. It means love because I feel your love when I sleep in it. It means comfort, because it is soft and it is sweet to sleep on it. It means care because through this you stressed how much you care for me. It means support. It is like you holding me in your hands. It means a whole world because it is my only personal place in all this world where I can dream, where I can cry, where I can write you letters. May God do the same to you what you have done for us." – Mariana, 11, Moldova

Over the years we have come to understand how powerful the gift of a bed, given in the name of Christ, can be. We have seen that it can be a catalyst for change, encouraging recipients to make life-saving changes in their lives because of their desire for a bed. Now, Sweet Sleep is striving to use beds and integrated social services to place, and keep, children in families, as God intends them to be.

One of the biggest challenges we face is funding. The need is real and the system for providing and delivering the beds is set. The difficulty lies in finding the funding to accomplish the mission and affect change in the lives of those we serve. Sweet Sleep has worked hard to develop its support base. We partner with individual donors, businesses and churches around the world in our endeavor to fulfill our mission. We believe the key to finding support is educating people about the need. We feel once someone knows the plight of the orphan, they feel responsible to remedy it.

Another big challenge is finding quality partners through whom we can complete our bed projects. We look for organizations with like-minded missions and a history of success and stability. We rely on our domestic staff, as well as our foreign staff, to find and assess the best possible partners, to best serve the thousands of orphans for whom we provide services for annually.

For 12 years, Sweet Sleep has enjoyed the support of thousands of people who have given millions of dollars to improve the lives of orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children around the world. We are grateful for what had been entrusted to us and ask for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Amy Rushing

Board Chair

CEO Statement

Dear Investor and Advocate:

Over Sweet Sleep’s 13 years, we have learned much about the orphan crisis. We have provided beds to more than 22,400 orphans in seven countries and have shown children around the world the ways to better, healthier living. Your investment in us makes this possible for the orphan. We are currently providing beds in central and northern Uganda, Moldova, and the United States, with plans to expand into recovering communities in Rwanda, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria.

Today, 5,760 children who woke up this morning without a mom or a dad (or both), will go to bed tonight heartbroken. Tomorrow depends on what you do, right now.

Sweet Sleep has become a leading organization in understanding global changes in orphan care. As countries continue to limit or restrict international adoption, and governmental changes systematically close orphanages, Sweet Sleep is responding by developing family preservation initiatives that are placing and keeping children in families within their own communities. In the process the families are counseled, trained, supported, and given sustainable income generating activities; resulting in a family that is self-sustainable. This year we initiated 1000 families in a family preservation program in Ethiopia and we’ve implemented economic development programs in Uganda, where approximately 140 families are engaged in eight cooperative businesses that are providing self-sustainability. In Moldova, we’ve trained 20 Christian couples in foster care and adoption and we’ve conducted seminars that have educated 450 pastors in Baptist Churches in Moldova in the biblical mandate to care for the orphan.

We encourage you to explore how you can be part of Sweet Sleep through your financial giving by way of one-time gifts, monthly giving, gifts of stocks or other noncash gifts such as: vehicles, boats, property, commodities, inventory and also electronics.

If you have any general questions, or would like to know more about various ways to get involved with or give to Sweet Sleep, please contact our office at 615-730-7671, or you may e-mail our Director of Finance and Administration, Ronda Harris at ronda@sweetsleep.org.

On behalf of our global staff, partners, and leadership, Sweet Sleep would like to thank you for all you’ve done through your advocacy, prayers, and financial support. God has used you to provide Sweet Sleep to thousands of orphaned and abandoned children around the world.

Thank you for partnering with us for 12 years as we passionately pursue Sweet Sleep’s goal of providing "a bed for every head."

DescriptionAccording to recent estimates, there are more than 210 million orphans worldwide. Every day 5,760 more children become orphans. Orphaned and abandoned and children in third world countries suffer from lack of sufficient or healthy places to sleep at night. From children in war torn Sudan who sleep in trees to protect themselves from wildlife to children in Eastern Europe who sleep on dilapidated 50-year old metal cots with broken metal springs which sage to the floor to children who sleep on soiled mats on filthy floors, millions of forgotten children around the world have no place to dream at night. Sweet Sleep works with indigenous staff, churches and businesses to provide beds and bedding to orphaned and abandoned children. Throughout the year Sweet Sleep coordinates teams to travel to orphanages to build beds and work with the children we serve. Our goal is to provide a bed for every head.

Globally, Sweet Sleep is working to rehabilitate families,
providing them with income generating activities that result in marketable,
sustainable skills. These families, while being equipped to provide for
themselves, are also undergoing counseling, and the children are being provided
for. Ultimately the children are reintegrated into their family and the family
is self-sustained and whole. In the process, the orphan crisis and the
cycle of poverty is broken.

Working in deeply impoverished communities, case workers are evaluating families where children are at the greatest risk of abandonment, have been taken to an orphanage, or have been left on the street to beg for food and money.

The families, so deeply affected by poverty, are desperate for help. Abandonment comes as a result of feelings of desperation or hopelessness. When parent or parents cannot feed their children; or they cannot feed some of their children and abandon one or two of the siblings. Sometimes parents live on the street and beg for food, but they cannot meet their family’s needs there. So, parents leave– and leave the child behind. Children are left or sent to the streets to beg for money or food. They are left, crying and frightened, on busy street corners.

Many times parents, unable to provide for their children, go to orphanages; carrying their infant or leading their toddler by the hand, and leave them. They think the orphanage is a better place for the child to grow up. BUT IT IS NOT!

Through economic development programs, parents are being given the tools they need to sustain themselves and to support their children. Vocational skills are being taught. Startup capital is being provided. Families are being counseled and taught that there is a better option than child abandonment.

Through Sweet Sleep’s economic development program, poverty is broken, families and communities are rebuilt, and the cycle of abandonment is broken. And they are learning to Thrive

Budget385000

CategoryCommunity Development, General/Other Community Economic Development

Population ServedAt-Risk Populations, At-Risk Populations, Africa

Short Term SuccessThrough Sweet Sleep’s economic development program, poverty is broken, families and communities are rebuilt, and the cycle of abandonment is broken

Long term Success

Through economic development programs, parents are being given the tools they need to sustain themselves and to support their children. Vocational skills are being taught. Startup capital is being provided. Children are being raised in loving, supportive homes. They are being equipped to thrive.

Program Success Monitored By

Sweet Sleep employees two in county staff in Uganda, each possess a masters degree in social work and business admin.

Sweet Sleep's board of a directors is made up of individuals and professionals passionate about serving orphans. The biggest challenge we face is finding the correct balance of personnel to man this governing body. Because we stick very strongly to our term limits, we have a need to cycle in new board members, ideas and perspectives on a regular basis.

Additionally, we are in the process of developing an advisory board for leaders who have cycled off the board, but would like to stay close to the charity.

Executive Director/CEO

Executive DirectorMrs. Madelene Metcalf

Term StartDec 2009

Emailmadelene@sweetsleep.org

Experience

Before being called to orphan
care, Madelene Metcalf was an employee benefits analyst for Bryan, Pendleton,
Swats, & McAllister, an actuarial firm of Wells Fargo Bank. She also
taught mathematics at Vanderbilt University and Middle Tennessee State
University, where she received a BS in Mathematics (Vanderbilt 1999) and a MS
in Applied Mathematics (MTSU 2004).

Madelene began her involvement with the ministry in 2008, was named Sweet Sleep’s “Volunteer or the Year” in 2011, and began serving in a volunteer staff position in November 2011. In 2012, Madelene’s role was expanded to Global Ministry Director where she oversaw all the ministry’s international staff, coordinated mission journeys, managed international and domestic partnerships, and executed the disbursement of funds for all of the ministry’s programs.

Madelene has served in an executive leadership role since February 2013 and was named President in May 2014. She has extensive experience in international nonprofit missions and management and has developed the mission and vision of economic development while expanding Sweet Sleep’s reach and efficacy of beds delivery.

Staff

Full Time Staff2

Part Time Staff0

Volunteers80

Contractors1

Retention Rate100%

Plans & Policies

Does the organization have a documented Fundraising Plan?Yes

Does the organization have an approved Strategic Plan?Yes

Number of years Strategic Plan Considers3

When was Strategic Plan adopted?Jan 2011

In case of a change in leadership, is a Management Succession plan in place?Yes

Experience/BiographyRonda Harris has been working with Sweep Sleep since early 2011. Ronda has a rich background in Accounting and Ministry. She has a heart for orphans and the ministry of Sweet Sleep. As a graduate of UCO with an Accounting Degree, Ronda questioned how God could use her skill set to further the kingdom. Finding a place like Sweet Sleep to serve has been the answer to that question.

Experience/BiographyStuart became aware of the needs of Moldova’s orphans in 2005 through a partnership between Sweet Sleep and EMI CMG, where he served as Director of Inventory Management for nine years. The following year, Stuart took his first trip to Moldova and his passionate advocacy for orphaned and abandoned children deepened.
Stuart served as the first Chairman of Sweet Sleep’s Board of Directors before joining the Sweet Sleep executive staff. He has been pivotal in moving the ministry into Haiti and Uganda and in more than doubling Sweet Sleep’s beds delivery capacity over three years. Stuart oversees international operations and programming.

CEO Comments

Sweet Sleep is currently in an
expansion stage. A number of policies and procedures are being created and/or
are under review.

Through strong internal controls, lowered overhead, re-engagement of past supporters & development of new supports we are happy to report we reached our fiscal 2015 goal of a 100% model, allowing all public donations to go directly to serving Orphans. Sweet Sleep is dedicated to obtaining this milestone again in our current fiscal year.

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